Lauren Mitchell
GERM,
............I want to speak to you in the present tense.
.......................You’re leaning towards me so I know you’re listening.
Your mohawk has grown out,..... your boots held together by pins.
...........I touch your delicate fingers with my mouth. I want to swallow them,
to have parts of you I can carry.
...........................I want to speak in language only we can understand.
.............Can you see me kneeling in a field, flames everywhere?
There are people screaming at the fire because they don’t know what it is
..............—they haven’t learned how to sleep in it.
.........................Now it’s the beginning:
I spy you slouched in a mid-day shadow. ............The palms rush like cilia above us.
.................................................I ask for a cigarette.
..........We both have black eyes.
.....................I want to kiss you because we both have black eyes.
